Conquer His Stars
by starsareoverrated
Summary: They are intertwined, briar and rose. For ever and all that comes after that. A story of a girl who learns all the different ways that she can love, and the man she loves first ... and last.
1. Chapter 1

**1.**

* * *

Something burns within her when she looks at Sirius Black.

She sees him first when she is fourteen, and she thinks it might be fear - acrid, searing, flesh-melting fear. He is quite disassembled when she actually meets him, after all. A picture in a paper - a moving one, but still - has not prepared her for the reality of seeing him, of beholding him in her vision, in reality.

She is instantly curious. And instantly wary. He looks like something out of a mad-house. Unchained and unfettered, left to roam the world that condemned him, he is jerky with his movements and rabid with his words.

She thinks he fits the Shrieking Shack. Both, the house and the man, seem to be empty vessels of rage and little else. She wonders if he realizes that he looks in tune with the somber hue of his name. He probably doesn't care, seeing as he is absolutely absorbed by her best friend, whose father was _his_ best friend.

Do you feel, do you feel the night? She wants to ask him.

But she doesn't. Because this is not the time, because he is innocent and she knows it and Harry knows it and Ron knows it and Professor Lupin has probably always known it, but the wizarding world has known a lie for more than a decade, and the wizarding world is not forgiving.

Because she knows that the type of world that ignores the existence of a mythical Chamber to avoid mass hysteria doesn't care about justice and fairness and all those things that she sees awash in white.

Because if they don't hurry, _if they don't hurry_, the traitor will escape - just as he did before - and Sirius Black will be shackled once again by chains that do not conform to him, because it was not he who sinned. It was not he who committed.

But it _was_ he who suffered.

And she cares deeply about the balance of the world; but the tilt of human nature, the propensity for violence and revenge in mortal hearts overturns her wishes.

More importantly, they devastate Harry. Harry, who receives the closest thing to a parent that could be apart from his actual parents and is deprived of that once again.

He tells her she really is the brightest witch of her age, but that brings her partial satisfaction because she wants to be the brightest witch _ever_, and maybe he sees some discontent in her and so gives her a jaded smile - a lop-sided lift of one side of his mouth, almost showing his filthy teeth but not quite.

She feels a twinge of something that has her thinking about what Sirius Black might've achieved had he not been robbed of more than a decade of his life. What he could've been.

He rides away on a stolen Hippogriff; away, away into the gentle night and she and Harry watch him until they can no longer distinguish Buckbeak's flapping wings from Nyx.

* * *

Something fundamental has changed within her, but she is too inexperienced to know what it is. Is it some flaw of character, or some embellishment in her often abrasive nature that has her thinking about the escaped convict, Sirius Black?

When she first sees his storm-gray eyes in the world of dreams in the summer of her fourth year, she questions what it is, that has her reminiscing about an encounter that was not her own to cherish. Sirius Black is Harry Potter's godfather, and they have a lot of ground to cover.

Did he play Quidditch when he was at Hogwarts? If the Firebolt is any indication, then he is, at the very least, interested in the game.

Voldemort hurtles towards them faster than the galaxies.

She used to think Quidditch was scary. Levitating children is somewhat more sinister.

She can only hope that when the collision occurs, she can pull herself and her friends out of his funk with enough time to spare another.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

* * *

It is rather discomfiting to dream about a man.

Hermione is not yet fifteen, and yet, when she closes her eyes, it is not Ron or Harry or some of the more good-looking boys at school that she sees. At night, she is visited by a man, a haunted, tortured man with pale eyes and dark hair. He has a sunken face, and his pallor is telling of the malnutrition that he has experienced. The fervor in his eyes speaks of the mad beast inside him, but she cannot feel frightened when she knows what she knows.

Suddenly, one day after a night of encountering him in dreams, she finds that she has rather forgotten what he sounds like. She tries to replicate the intonations, the hard-edged burr, but something always goes amiss.

Lying on her bed, she fingers her bedspread, agitatingly pulling at it in an attempt to relieve the uneasiness she feels within herself. She wants to remember his voice, she does, but she only remembers his words now. It is a strange loss, and weirdly enough, it makes her smile in disbelief at herself.

She has always liked mature people. Somehow that had transcribed itself over to the people she fancied. At one point, it had been Lockhart - how she regretted her own naivete! - and at others, she had almost found Snape to be somewhat admirable, though his unpleasantness left a lot to be desired. One of her older neighbors, by the name of Wilbur Carter had caught her attention when she had attended a lecture given by him at a seminar - she did not remember what it had been about - and his easy smiles, broad shoulders and honey tinted hair were enough to make her consider going over and ... and nothing. She was no Parvati; not confident and not forward.

That had been only the last summer break. Wilbur Carter had since married, and lived happily with his pretty wife down the street.

* * *

Ron writes and invites her over to the Burrow, excitedly going on - at length- about the Quidditch World Cup. He talks it up so much, that Hermione is almost, _almost,_ anticipating going. One thing she cannot share with Harry and Ron is their fanaticism about the mad game.

This leads her to wonder whether Sirius Black, of all people, had played in his days. Would he like to attend the World Cup? It is illogical to hope, to hope - she chides herself on her own eager musings - that he will. Maybe he will go in his Animagus form.

And maybe I'm a veela! She berates snarkily. Huffing, she grabs a mirror and looks at her image. She has never liked to do this, and she doesn't enjoy it now, but taking a moment to appraise her features, she thinks she looks a bit like her mom. Which is good news. The baby fat has leached from her face, and she finds the play of the dim evening light on the planes of her smooth cheeks mesmerizing.

Hissing in disgust, she hurls the mirror away. She is not vain, and any appreciation she may find in her looks is sure to be useless. She'd much rather be complimented for her magical prowess.

* * *

Death Eaters.

Surely, Voldemort must've had a better name in mind. It doesn't matter either way.

They're all going to die any way.

She imagines dangling upside down in mid-air. Her stomach lurches, not so much from the unfortunate position as from the mental image and accompanying vertigo.

Mustn't her discomfort vanish in the face of those that had really been displayed?

She learns that feeling that makes her want to take the world for herself, tear it down the middle and remake it in her name, because she can do a better job of it than the people who currently do.

Hermione is a naive girl, and she has made no promises.

* * *

Mr. Weasely looks like he wants to tell her it isn't as bad for muggleborns as it is made out to be. When he does, he sounds like a liar, and she hates him for misleading her. For _trying_ to mislead her.

They don't call her smart for nothing, so she starts preparing.

Maybe others around her try and convince themselves that Voldemort won't be gracing the physical plane again, but she has grown up, and so she prepares ... for every. fucking. scenario.

Hogwarts is home, and it has never been clearer. But it is not her _only_ home. And the people in it are not her only people.

For one guilty moment, she thinks that Harry is better off without parents. They are two people less to worry about. She junks this thought faster than she had the mirror.

* * *

Hermione sees the world in cut colors. With stark outlines and block hues, it is easy to see things as she wants to.

The journey to Hogwarts is as it should have been. Magical. And unreal. Painted in blue and brilliant shimmer.

They learn about the Triwizard Tournament. She wonders how someone could be so cavalier about deaths that have occurred in previous editions. There is a reason that this event is taking place this year. She just hasn't figured it out yet, whatever it is.

There is cruelty here, it is dark and jaded and spectacularly despondent. It is present in the attitudes of people, the way they stare when she brings up books and when she turns her nose up at makeup and teenage frivolity. Running through this ancient school, through its walls of knowledge, through the very air which is heavy with gold spells, cruelty is inescapable. She feels alone most times but it is ignored in the ruckus of Gryffindor House, where everyone is good-humored and athletic and brash ... and foolish ... and generally wand-happy.

She is quite good at charms, she is told.

* * *

Beauxbatons witches seem snobby and without the common sense she is used to, even in the dullest of her Hogwarts classmates.

Durmstrang boys live up to the 'dark' moniker, at least in their uniforms. Richly burgundy and appropriately warded against the harsh Scottish winds, they are practical if not a bit dangerous.

When she first catches Viktor Krum looking at her in the corridors, his ebony brown eyes following her track from one end of the hallway till she rounds out the corner and is out of sight, a heavy airiness springs up in her stomach and ridiculous grin settles into place.

She forgets all about Sirius Black, predictably, until Harry's name spills out of that damned blue-flame goblet, a lot like Albus Dumbledore's twinkly eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

* * *

A rose is beautiful because of its form, its unique color spread in that unique _rose_ way that you don't find in other trivial flowers. It is held delicately by a single, prickly stem, extending from the base of the blossom to your hand, and it is a joy to hold it ... until you run your hands and are out of luck, and then you feel the _pain _...

* * *

What is this place, Hermione wonders, that makes a boy of fourteen-summers compete against those that have more experience, more bulk, more knowledge, more ... everything? She is a whirlwind when Harry comes out into the clearing to face his Horntail, a veritable mess, as he puts himself on the line. It is too many bloody times by now.

She fears it may be yet as many times, and even more perhaps.

Ducking, whirling, flying - Harry dodges the obstacles and claims the Golden Egg. She breathes finally, and it is like she is breathing after weeks and weeks of asphyxia.

He is fine now, and that is what matters.

She is angry at the authority figures that have decided it is best to follow through with the whims of an ancient magical artifact. Surely, it might have been possible to mold, to malleate the magic of the Triwizard Cup to let Harry's obligations go.

Kaput go _her_ wishes. Seems, even a cup is more relevant.

* * *

November brings with it a visit to Hogsmeade. Sirius Black sends word that he would want to meet with them.

Snuffles. Padfoot. Sirius.

Hermione had made Harry send a letter to his godfather explaining about his fogey selection in the Death-Trap Tournament. She thinks the older wizard would've wanted to know.

Something forgotten takes root again, its foundations already in place by now, but an opportunity to _grow_, to _see_, to _feel_, is presented.

On the other hand, Ron is apparently over his momentary jealous fit.

* * *

The dog stands waiting for Harry, Hermione and Ron at the edge of Hogsmeade. He is cleaner now, but by no means is he looking healthy. After petting Snuffles, during which Hermione fights a stupid grin from forming on her face ( disregarding the _already _stupid grin present ), they head up to a bare cave in the side of the mountain overlooking the Hogwarts plains.

For a moment, Hermione pauses and looks over at the sprawling scenery, the absolute vastness of the hills and the beauty of her school in the distance. It is humbling in a way, and she feels small and stupid when she remembers how she thinks about changing the world sometimes.

Because if the world is anything like this view, this varied, this lacking in its own conviction, then she is ... she's not even thinking about the world anymore. This is about herself, she knows this.

She has limited herself. Molded and crammed and cut away at her personality to fit into something that is not as aggravating to her friends. She never thinks to question herself on this, but she will, one day.

Her mother has always told her that she has been born for more than being someone's side-kick or back-up plan. As she looks at the falling embers of the sky - as they down the deserts of time and sand below - she convinces herself of her own inevitability.

* * *

It appears that Sirius Black actually listens when she talks. Another chip falls into place in her heart and she smiles the whole way back up to the castle.

* * *

Winter arrives, harsh and sweet and beautiful and cruel. White shrouds the scenery and hoar-frost makes itself seen on the blades of conifers, even as inside Hogwarts, the house-elves bustle around to warm the occupants discreetly in way of warming pans and pre-warmed rooms.

It eats away at her that nobody cares about the miserly house-elves, forced into servitude and made to enjoy it. She had read in a book once that elves used to be rather proud beings, not unlike goblins and had actually been _more_ powerful - magically - than most other beings of similar deign.

Taking inspiration from muggles, she sets out and creates a whole tinful of batches blazing with the banner - S.P.E.W. , Society For the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. It is a silly name, and she is somewhat embarrassed, but she figures that if she could just make people _see_, to make them _understand_, then they would realize the plight the little creatures were in.

* * *

Not surprised when she takes in the lackluster response to her initiative, Hermione puts her plans on the back-burner but without withdrawing her badges.

Meanwhile, Viktor Krum asks her to the Yule Ball. She says yes, eyeing his dark hair and then gives him a small smile which turns amused when she notices his attention there. She had never used make-up before, and the only part on her face that is not _of_ her face is the cherry-scented lip balm.

She touches her lips that night, remembering Viktor's soft kiss as she accepted. A few minutes of replaying and his dark hair loses the brownish edge, now completely soot-black. Paired with storm eyes that stare at her, she is, at first, concerned when _something_ clenches in her abdomen. When she realizes what the feeling is, her face flames even in the dark dorm softly dappled with red glow from Parvati's lampshade.

It is an involuntary response, a reaction to base hormones and impulse in feelings that her mind has registered somewhere but hadn't made it known to her. Hermione's heart beats fast when her hand drops to the hollow of her throat and taking a deep breath, shifts downward, over the swell of her maturing breasts and taut stomach before coming to rest on the junction of her legs over her soft, lace panties.

She pauses there and even considers removing her hand, but one more image of Viktor's dark hair - and then someone_ else's _\- and she puts her fingers completely on her lace covered pussy. She doesn't know how this is supposed to feel, and she is sure that the light rubbing that she gives her clit through the lace is a muted version of what she could _actually_ feel. Swallowing hard, she slips her fingers into her panties and past the neat thatch of dark curls, down to her clit. Her calves clench as she rubs the sensitive nub, moaning into the side of her pillow as she spreads the wetness from down further onto it. It makes each pass of her fingers slick and wet noises fill the air. She is sure that no one will notice, though, and bites her pillow lightly when another image of - okay! Sirius Black's , NO, Viktor's, NO! ... _whatever _\- hard jaw invades her mind.

Clenching her teeth, Hermione rubs faster and faster, increasing the pressure of her fingers more and more, even scraping with her nail at her clit before the deep-seated coil inside her unwinds and pushes her into something she has never experienced before. Vaguely conscious of her panting, grunting noises, her hand slowly runs up and down the length of her slit as she comes down from the high.

After about ten minutes, her heart has calmed enough and she is the only one who sees her indulgence, the only witness to this forbidden activity.

Smoke and storm and silver-gray stones fill her dreams.

* * *

The Yule Ball comes and goes in a flurry of snow, and by the end of it, she supposes it was nice enough and is done with it.

Then is the time for her to take a little swim. She just wishes she could actually have seen the Mervillage instead of being left tied to a pole. She takes note of Viktor's atrocious transfiguration spellwork.

The year-end exams approach and Hermione throws herself into preparing for them, adding hours upon her already stretched schedule, which included - but was not lilited to - helping Harry ready himself for the third task. This third task, its apparent nature and the pre-informed contestants seem to easy. Not easy in the way that by this Harry will win the Triwizard Cup, but in that strange magic that permeates the air around Hogwarts.

It is oppressive and antagonistic, and none of the teachers seem to be overtly concerned about it.

* * *

Life is such a delicate balance, as is between the fragrance and the thorn of the rose. When you start to relish in the frivolous velveteen brush, _something_ stabs you to

drag you down into the depths wherein you've always belonged.

* * *

Hermione Granger belongs _here_, at Hogwarts.

A yelling Harry Potter and a dead body do not bode well, she thinks to herself, and feels with certainty : Everything was about to _change_.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

* * *

Everything has changed.

The sky burns blue against her lids, beating the membranes when she closes them. Redness spreads over the entire slip of skin and she is burning - burning - _singeing_ in the sun ...

Hermione wakes up the first day of summer break in a daze. Except, she is not in a daze - she _is_ the daze. Come September, she will turn sixteen, maybe seventeen if she factors in her use of time-turner. She doesn't want to admit why she obsesses so over her age and why the thought of being a magical adult thrills her, doesn't want to face the hidden parts of her, doesn't want to see doesn't want to feel them, but they continue to_ burn_.

What she wishes for, and what is actually truly really feasible are very much far apart. Hermione doesn't know if she's confident enough to pursue, if she's beautiful enough to mark indelibly, if she's tactful enough to reassess. She is not much of anything, she thinks; in her more pessimistic moods, she feels nothing. Is this normal? Is this natural?

She wonders, she wonders endlessly.

* * *

Her homework is finished by the end of the first week, and she almost regrets doing it so swiftly but since she hates procrastination, she takes up something else.

And something else.

And something even further.

* * *

_... we've all been here these past few days ... __**Sirius' house **__... Harry will come too ... barking __**mad**__, Hermione, you should see this ... send an answer with Pig ..._

* * *

Remus Lupin comes to take her to the safe-house. Looking shabby and overworked and in declining health but with a certain mistiness of expression, he arrives one evening in mid-July. She is down the second the first trill of the door-bell sounds.

She has been packed for _days_.

'Is it Sirius' house, where we're going, Professor Lupin?'

'I'm guessing Ron told you? '

She nods.

'He wasn't supposed to, but it doesn't matter. Nobody can find that house even with their noses pressed up against the windows - and, call me Remus, Hermione. I'm no longer your professor.'

'Okay, Prof - I mean, _Remus_.'

A beat of silence where she searches for something to say.

Then-

'How are we getting there, Remus?'

A slightly wicked grin curls up the corner of Remus' mouth.

Horrified, Hermione gasps. ' _No_.'

* * *

They don't fly, after all.

Hermione learns the Marauder streak in her former professor.

It unsettles her greatly.

* * *

What they _do_ use, however, should be torched. Hermione has never hated _buses_ till this moment, but, she thinks with a clenched jaw, there's a first time for everything.

* * *

A dead courtyard, grey with years and with gloomy stain greets her. Cracked walls surround the small, secret space and old ivy climbs dwindling stone structures. The vegetation is a joke, and she has never seen a place so overgrown never seen such dilapidated surroundings, but Oh, if this is Sirius Black's place, then God help whoever tries to drag her away from there.

The man in question steps out from the back-door which leads into the sooty sitting area with the kitchen to one side and the dining hall to the other.

Her heart beats once, twice, and then trips all over itself and then he is talking and she quite forgets the rushing in her own ears because this is Sirius Black and she has never quite talked to him like this, never been alone with him, never really _seen_ him.

'Hermione,' he says, dark hair falling around his chiseled face that is formed into a gentle smile. ' How was your break?'

She blinks. And then recovers.

'Fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.'

He raises one black eyebrow. ' Fine? Oh, well, I guess that's ... _fine_.'

She huffs out a nervous laugh, and he smiles wider.

'This is - this is your place?' She asks, motioning towards the garden of doom.

His face darkens quite noticeably. ' Not really. Never mine, though its coming in quite useful these days.'

She waits for him to elaborate.

'I was quite literally thrown out of this place when I was fifteen. I haven't been back here since then.'

'Oh ... ' And in an attempt to distract him, she asks, 'So, who else is here?'

* * *

The Ancient and Noble House of Black.

The inside is worse. There are corpses of house-elves in here and she's disgusted and frightened and repulsed, but shite, there's a troll leg umbrella stand that she hasn't quite noticed on her way in the first time.

An old creature called Kreature takes quite the shine to her.

She had thought she wouldn't feel bad if she's called Mudblood again, but she does. It is hurled at her by a being she has never met before and a horrid portrait of Sirius' _mother_, and she's again left marveling at the dis-balance all around her.

* * *

The first night when she arrives, the Weasleys are not there, visiting with their Aunt Muriel instead and its just her and Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and a metamorphmagus witch named Nymphadora Tonks - who is Sirius' cousin, of all things - and she feels awkward and jumpy, but she stays and has dinner with the three of them.

Tonks, is what the witch wants herself to be called, and so Tonks she shall be. They don't talk much amongst themselves that first dinner because they don't really know one another and she is content to sit back and watch Tonks flirt surreptitiously with Remus with Sirius letting out bark-like laughs at particularly forward comments that Hermione is sure she shouldn't be hearing, but fuck it, they don't care and neither does she.

She likes this, she realizes. Being treated like an adult.

But Tonks' suggestions put into Hermione's mind things that she had rather not think about when in Sirius Black's company. After all, she's not sure what exactly Sirius' Animagus capabilities lend to his wizard form. Extra hearing? Heightened senses? Maybe both.

* * *

She has trouble sleeping that night and twice she gets up to go down and get some water. There's a sliver of light coming from a room in the muted hallway off the kitchen, she notices the first time she's sipping from an ornate glass. But she's just so knackered - though that doesn't translate to sleep - that she trudges right back up the dingy stairs and collapses on the bed.

The second time she hears something from the lit room and decides to investigate, though Sirius had clearly warned her not go wandering. For a moment, she even takes several steps back but a soft sob and a tinkle as if of glass makes its way to her ears and of course she bloody well can't help herself. So she pads over to the shut door, except ...its ajar. And inside is a drunk man.

Maybe he doesn't notice the creak of the wizened door or maybe he doesn't care, but Sirius Black makes an interestingly morose study as he sits, hunched over in an armchair and clutching a bottle of firewhiskey with another empty one at his feet. A dying fire bravely flickers occasionally beside him, trying to warm the chilled sadness in the room but is unsuccessful. Hermione might not have believed such a thing, but if she had to describe the room, she would say it_ tasted _of sadness.

She walks over to the armchair, halts and breaks many times on her way, but then reaches it and is immediately struck by the atrocious smell.

Hermione has imagined for many months now, what Sirius Black would smell like. Right now he smells very much like a dingy pub with stale breath. It is wholly unpleasant.

'Umm - Sirius?' she whispers, one hand raised slightly. Is he even awake?

She tries again. Still no answer.

There is one thing she knows that will snap him out of this, but she hates to use it when he is so vulnerable. If she has learnt anything about him, she knows he hated his family with a passion.

'Mr Black?' she says in an authoritative voice.

The effect is startling and she takes two steps back instinctively.

In the end, they prove fortunately useless.

* * *

Something burns within her when she looks at Sirius Black.

If she had to explain all the sensations she feels when he is near her - like _this_, confiding and conspiratorial - then she would say, without exaggerating, that it was akin to riding on a Muggle roller-coaster, except you'd probably have to increase its speed a hundred thousand times and hang it upside down too, for good measure.

She is almost seventeen now.

She wonders if it is at all so momentous as she has made it out to be.


End file.
